Police hacked after top cop rows with daughter

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A hacker attack which infiltrated Germany's federal police computer system using Trojan programs and a system of routes via Russia last summer was due to a row about internet usage between a top cop and his daughter.

It resulted in the “Patras” server being closed down – meaning that federal police had to halt operations tracking suspects and their vehicles. Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich subsequently said computer security would be made a top priority.

Der Spiegel magazine reported on Sunday that the Frankfurt officer concerned had put a Trojan program on his daughter's computer to monitor her activities in the internet.

A friend of the young woman from the hacker scene discovered her father's spyware – and hacked into his computer in order to get back at him. There he found work emails which enabled him to get into the federal police computer system, the magazine said.

A 23-year-old man from North Rhine Westphalia was arrested last summer, and admitted hacking the German customs authority computer systems. The anonymous “No Name Crew” hacking group had previously posted sensitive information from customs investigations on the internet.

A police spokesman on Sunday said he could not say whether the two cases were linked.